The ONE Thing You Need to do to Get Fit (and Stay Fit) Forever

One Thing to Get Fit

I’ve got a tip for you today. It’s the kind of tip you’re going to wish you had thought of a long time ago. It’s also the kind of tip you’re going to say, what the hell – that’s not even a tip. Bear with me…

You want to get fit right? You want to add a little shape to that figure, give that body a slow, painful death, and otherwise transform your body into a lean, mean, machine…yes? And let me guess, you’ve tried a lot of different methods to get yourself there. Different workout programs, an array diets, perhaps even a (gasp) cleanse or two? How’d all that work out for you? Are you satisfied? Have you achieved everything you’ve wanted? If not, keep reading.

Getting fit, and maintaining that level of excellence, is all about making long-lasting changes in your life. As you probably realize by now, it’s not about the quick diet. Or that nonsense cleanse. It’s not even about a 90 day workout program on DVD. It’s about making small and steady changes to your life, that when taken in context, completely change who you are. For the better of course…

You probably already have some experience with this. Maybe you gave up drinking soda. Maybe you started bicycling to work. Perhaps you cut back on your daily sugar intake by drinking your 11 cups of coffee black. These are all examples of small, but influential changes that will impact your overall health and body in the long-term. Great as they are, they still pale in comparison with what I’m about to drop on you.

Time.

Before we get into that, what’s one of the biggest obstacles preventing you maximizing your fitness potential? What’s preventing you from getting into that size 4 dress or hitting that 225 lb milestone on your bench press? If you’re like most of the working world, the answer is time. You don’t have the time all the hard bodies at your gym have. There’s nothing that can be done to change that…..or is there?

What would you do with an extra 30 minutes per day? How about another hour given back to you? What if you could find even more? Think you could actually achieve that “hard body” status if you had just a few more minutes each day? I’m willing to bet you could. If time is your obstacle, it would make sense that giving you back time, lowers the obstacle to your fitness potential.

So where is this time coming from? It’d be nice to just snap your fingers and add a 25th hour to the day, but that isn’t happening. You’re going to have to look at your life and see where you can carve out some time. Before your mind starts scrambling to come up with half a dozen reasons why this isn’t possible, I’m just going to answer this one for you.

Kiss the Tube Goodbye

If you want to get fit, and I mean REALLY fit, here’s what you’re going to do:

Give up TV.

That’s it. It’s that simple. Give up TV. I don’t care if you watch a lot or a little. You’re going to give up TV and your life is going to absolutely change for the better, in the process.

I did this myself a couple of months ago. While I always found time to exercise, I’ve literally watched my productivity increase by ten-fold. And I never considered myself a big TV watcher either. But you know what? Those 5-6 hours of TV a week I was watching, were impacting me. I’m willing to bet, however many hours you’re putting in a week are impacting you too.

Five to six hours doesn’t sound like much, but what could you do with that extra time? You could extend each day’s workout by 30 minutes, then spend the rest of that time prepping a week’s worth of meals. You could add in an extra 5 yoga lessons on top of your regularly scheduled workouts each week. You could go for two long bike rides after work each week. There are a thousand (healthy) things you could do with that extra time. The key is just having the determination to make that time.

Let’s be real. TV sucks. Reality TV is horrible and there isn’t another Seinfeld on the horizon. The crap we subject ourselves to often leaves us feeling unfulfilled and hopeless about our own lives. It truly is the idiot box. So get rid of it. Cut it out of your life. Say goodbye. Because you know what? In the process of doing so, wonderful things are going to start happening to you. You’re going to finally, after all these years, notice those changes in your body. You’re going to improve yourself as a person.

While browsing some of these articles, I came across one startling fact. The average American spends 9 years of his or her life in front of the TV. 9 YEARS.

That. is. bananas. That’s like, one-eighth of your entire life…more or less wasted while staring at 60-year-old women from Orange County pretending to be 24. You’ve got one life my friends, do you really want to waste 9 YEARS OF IT glued to the tube? It’s time to make some changes. Cut the TV, get outside, get to the gym, do something that actually benefits your life. Hell, even if you hate the gym and don’t care what you look or feel like, turn off the TV and learn something new. Learn to speak Chinese. It doesn’t matter. Just do something that’s actually going to help you grow, rather than devote all your free time to something that is actively harming you and stunting your own personal development and health.